Pre-show notes:
– Here’s a link to the show on WWE Network, in case you missed it.
– If you’d like to revisit last year’s report, you can read that here. Ryback was on the poster!
– With Spandex, you guys. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter, which I’d appreciate.
– Share the column to cheer up Dolph Ziggler. Scroll past to make him sadder!
Click on through for the Best and Worst of WWE Battleground 2014.
Worst: Pre-Show Match #1, An Ode To Smackdown
In the interest of getting this report up quickly, I uploaded the quick results, poured a cup of coffee and settled in for a night of writing. I sat here for almost two hours before I could type the first word. That’s a small preview of how I felt about the show. Understanding the how and why of this show is kinda like trying to read Finnegan’s Wake. I’m trying to read it. I’m trying so hard. I know there’s something of worth here, and some sort of reason, but then John Cena’s Attitude Adjusting people onto other people to win his match again, Bray Wyatt’s losing clean, the pre-show is my worst wrestling nightmare and suddenly ere the hour of the twattering of bards in the twitterlitter between Druidia and the Deepsleep Sea.
Let’s start with the pre-show before I start farting out consonants. I write a thing not a hell of a lot of you read every Wednesday called the Assumptive Smackdown Spoilers Report, and the gimmick is that I read the actual Smackdown spoilers from some cut-and-paste site and assume the worst. The Battleground pre-show was like something I dreamed up there. It goes beyond bad. It might be the worst half hour of wrestling all year.
Match #1 was Adam Rose vs. Fandango. If Rose had just found Fandango backstage and forced him to down a case of Bartles & Jaymes Kiwi Strawberry while a dude dressed like a chicken sandwich laughed it would’ve been better. The match is like, 80% conga line. Summer Rae and Layla are now Adam Rose’s concubines or whatever and instead of just kicking this old creeper’s ass, Fandango gets SUPER EFFECTIVE DISTRACTED, falls victim to Rose’s few wrestling moves and immediately loses. Everyone dances away happily, because nobody’s tired of going “oh oh oh oh oh” yet.
Worst: Pre-Show Match #2, An Ode To A Slightly Worse Part Of Smackdown
Match #2 made match #1 look like Pillman/Liger.
In it, a Frederick’s of Hollywood mannequin and an optical illusion do battle by seeing who can grab the other’s hair and awkwardly shove them into the ropes the most. Just terrible. Jump to the 1:40 mark for Naomi loudly yelling “YOU READY?” in full view of the camera so Cameron knows it’s time to do the finish, because a woman with four years of wrestling experience still needs the loudest, clearest YOU READY before a roll-up. I’m surprised Naomi didn’t yell PUSH ME INTO THE ROPES AND THEN ROLL ME BACKWARDS, IT’S FINE, DO IT NOW, RIGHT NOW.
Worst: I Guess Nikki Bella’s Designing Everyone’s Gear Now
And by designing, of course, I mean “hitting up Spirit Halloween before the show.”
Seriously, Nikki Bella’s a sexy baseball player, and now Cameron’s a sexy school girl and Naomi’s a sexy race car driver. I don’t know what’s going on. The next time Eva Marie wrestles she should be dressed as the Peanut Butter Jelly Time banana. F*cking Jojo comes back wearing a domino mask and a sports bra with the Spider-Man logo on it. Just go all out, who cares? Wrestle matches in a fog machine. Have special gimmick matches where there’s a bowl with a plastic hand on it, and to grab the championship you’ve gotta reach into the bowl and not get scared when the hand springs to life. Pay the girls in bite-sized Three Musketeers. F*ck everything.
Best: Mournful Piano Shield Retrospectives
If things couldn’t get sadder and more depressing, right smack in the middle of the kickoff show is a video package that says HEY FRIEND, REMEMBER THE SHIELD? WEREN’T THEY AWESOME? LET’S LISTEN TO THEM CALMLY TALK ABOUT HOW THEY’RE BROTHERS AND HOW THEY LOVE EACH OTHER WHILE SAD PIANO MUSIC PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND.
I write about these shows every week, so I think I’d gotten to a comfortable place of accepting the Shield breakup and the directions its members had found themselves wandering in. “Dean Ambrose is fine, he’s going a ton of great character work and crowds love him.” “Seth Rollins is fine, he’s the ‘golden boy’ of the main bad guy team or whatever and he’s got Money in the Bank. He might be WWE Champion soon.” “Roman Reigns is fine, he’s basically just Handsome Sheamus now but in the WWE Universe Sheamus ain’t a horrible thing to be.” And then there’s that shirt, and they’re talking about justice, and my heart goes awww, man.
I have a lot to say about this later, but I’ll end this page with, “how the hell are you gonna play an emotional bulldozer like this Shield video and not even give me the payoff?”
Best: The Best Match Of The Night, By A Mile
Battleground’s opening match was like a precious apology for its pre-show. “Don’t fret, child,” it whispered to me softly, patting me on the head. “I’m sorry for that first 30 minutes. Here’s 30 minutes of the Usos and the Wyatts beating the holy mess out of each other.”
This was absolutely one of the best WWE matches of the year so far, and the best two-on-two match in WWE since the Rhodes Brothers and The Shield at last year’s Battleground. As lucha libre knows, 2-out-of-3 falls with even the TINIEST amount of effort put into it is a pretty bulletproof match stipulation, and these guys got every ounce of drama and excitement they needed by just straight-up wrestling has hard as they could for the entirety of it.
So much to love here. Luke Harper ripping the paint off Jimmy Uso’s face with a boot and popping a Keiji Mutoh pose might’ve been my favorite moment of the entire thing, and that was just the ending of the first fall. I never like when WWE does multi-fall or elimination matches and transitional moves can suddenly get the pinfall, but that boot could’ve pinned ten people, so I’ll allow it. I love that the Usos only got the win because they decided to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and do everything in tandem for a minute, and I love that all the dives worked and held up because these teams were the only ones diving. Remember Extreme Rules when everybody was diving onto everybody? Make it the feature of one match and make them make sense, and we’ll leave the show remembering how cool and chaotic that one thing felt. Uh, this is especially important on a show with only one good thing.
I’m not sure where the teams go from here and I REALLY wanted a title change, but the match was worth it no matter what. There aren’t a lot of heels teams on the show (unless they’re planning to bring up The Ascension), so who’s gonna eat those Uso superkicks? Rybaxel? After watching them have the exact same match with the Rhodes Brothers 75 times in a row would anyone buy it? Also, that’s gotta be it for the Wyatts. You should only lose so many title shots before management goes, “okay, somebody else’s turn.” Even in WWE, where one script gets used until the paper it’s printed on starts to break down and biodegrade.
Worst: The Wyatts Didn’t Lose That Match
Two complaints, though:
1. The Wyatts did not lose that second fall. Let’s go to the replay. Take a look at the referee’s hand coming down for three, and look how insanely far up Harper’s shoulder is.
I don’t know what’s wrong with these refs lately. I seriously had to go back and see if this was Rudy Charles. I’ve actually given him grief for not just counting what he knows is supposed to be the finish with a wrestler’s shoulder sliiiightly up, but Harper was standing f*cking upright before that three. Guy was practically on the top rope. Pretty sure Uso could’ve done another superkick and stuck a second roll-up.
2.
Worst: The Iffy Agility Of The Usos
The point of the Usos is that somebody Ultimate Mash-Up’d Rikishi and the Hardy Boyz. I get that. They got a lot of their moves — namely the barricade run and the Whisper in the Wind — from Jeff Hardy. I’m not the biggest Hardy Boyz fan in the world, granted, but when Jeff would do those moves he’d go for it and either hit them really fast or just crash and burn. With the Usos, they’re doing these make-or-break highspots and they’re happening as slowly as possible.
Pay attention to how long it takes them to do these moves that are supposed to surprise you from out of nowhere. An Uso goes up for the Whisper in the Wind and instead of stepping up the ropes, he’s practically climbing them like normal. The guy waiting to take the move has to do a big dumb HUH?!?!?! stumble in a circle for like five seconds. The barricade run is worst. Guy’s supposed to be building moment, right? He’s supposed to be running, elevating himself mid-run and then throwing himself at his opponent. Instead, it’s a complete halting of momentum while he tries to make sure he’s got his balance, then a nervous, slow run across the barricade. Even that double splash at the end looked like they were gonna fall off and die before they got it together.
The Usos are very good at what they do, and again, that match was off the charts. But if you’re going to be the quick, confident high-flyers, you’ve got to be at least one of those adjectives.
Worst: The Multi-Segment Seth Rollins/Dean Ambrose Bait And Switch
Here’s a checklist of what I assume we all wanted from this:
– An emotional Shield video package
– A great Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins match
– Some Money in the Bank briefcase shenanigans at the end of the show to freshen-up the main
Here’s a rundown of what we actually got. Tell me if this is better or worse:
– An emotional Shield video package, again (check)
– “Up next is Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins!” That sends us backstage to a Seth Rollins promo that ends with Dean Ambrose attacking him and Triple H to throwing Ambrose out of the building. Then whooooosh, we immediately move onto a Divas match that no matter how good it is is not going to be Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins.
– Seth Rollins finally shows up and wins his match by forfeit, because Dean Ambrose isn’t allowed into the building. Then the SECOND he wins by, Ambrose rushes out again and attacks him, leading to a brawl. BECAUSE I GUESS YOU COULDN’T HAVE PLAYED AMBROSE’S MUSIC WHILE HE WAS RUNNING FROM POINT A TO POINT B AND CALLED THIS A MATCH. There’s no way he could’ve gotten from all the way outside to ringside in the time it took Rollins to walk 30 yards and hold up his arms.
– One of those awful in-the-parking-lot scenes where Seth Rollins is leaving and is all, “hey guys, stop following me, I don’t need security. I’m just gonna walk to my car with this camera man.” So the camera man’s like HEY SETH I MADE THIS AWESOME MIX CD FOR OUR DRIVE, I PUT THE SAME SONG AT THE BEGINNING AND THE END BUT THEY’RE DIFFERENT VERSIONS, I THINK IT BOOKENDS WHAT IT NICELY and whoooops, Dean Ambrose is hiding in the trunk of a car and springs forth to attack again.
So many questions. Why did Ambrose think this was necessary? Rollins didn’t exactly comb the grounds looking for him, he just stood in place and looked around. Couldn’t Ambrose have just as easily crouched behind a car? Or, I don’t know, stood comfortably behind one of those huge trucks? Furthermore, if Ambrose is in a closed car trunk, how does he know it’s time to pop out and attack Rollins? Hell, how long was he in that trunk? Should he even have a reliable way to open it from the inside? Isn’t that what The Call was about?
On top of all that, dude waits all that time to sneak attack Rollins and RIGHT before it works he goes EEAAAAGGHHHH so Rollins hears him coming. Oh no, his attack didn’t work! MAYBE DON’T YELL “EARGH” WHILE YOU ARE SNEAKING UP BEHIND SOMEONE. Oh, and Rollins had some carry-on baggage but didn’t have the Money in the Bank briefcase with him like he’s supposed to. Is it IN the carry-on? Shouldn’t Dean pop that open and see? Rollins left in his gear, worst case scenario it’s a pair of sneakers and a The Wonder Years t-shirt and you can toss them in the river.
This was so dumb. Raw and Smackdown are when you do the brawls that sell a pay-per-view. Sell The Network, I guess. What are you selling here? Is “wait until SummerSlam” a thing I can buy?
Best?: Friendenemies
Actual commentary to start the match:
[indiscriminate Twitter argument]
“There’s the handshake!”
“FRENEMIES.”
“AJ and Paige …”
“So they’re BFFs now, right?”
[CM Punk chant]
[WWE Network is an incredible value]
That’s sorta Paige vs. AJ in a nutshell. I liked a lot of it. I liked how the crowd (mostly) treated it like it was an important thing. The dueling “Let’s Go AJ/Let’s Go Paige” chants were great. Compared to the Funkadactyls match on a scale of Throwaway Garbage to A Cornerstone Of Our Industry, it was Hogan/Andre.
The problem I guess I had is that it felt more like the idea of a good match than a good match. It was like Paige vs. Emma if they hadn’t hit all their marks. They’re trading finishers and doing big powerbombs off the ropes, but the finishers don’t look like they’re doing anything and the powerbombs don’t go all the way around. The spear through the ropes gets hung up on the rope. It’s one of those things I wanted (and kinda needed) to be better than it was, but I’m objective enough to know it was better than most. That’s such a weird position to be in. I felt the same way watching those “big” CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho matches during Jericho’s first return. It’s like, what these matches MEAN should make them great, but they’re just dabbling in what a good match is supposed to be.
Maybe if they stopped saying “frenemies” for a hot second I could gather my thoughts. I appreciate the story they’re trying to tell, at least (see also: Batista and Eddie Guerrero), and I especially appreciate that it’s more complex than GURL BYE.
Best/Worst: “Current Events”
Here’s the first thing I’ll type under the boldface, so you’ll read it: you shouldn’t make fun of dead people and tragedies as soon as they happen. I’m not judging you. I’ve made plenty of bad, uncalled-for jokes. I’m just saying you shouldn’t.
That said, here’s a thing I need to periodically explain, because I get a lot of “how could you justify ______ and get mad about _____?? HYPOCRITE” etc. “Hypocrite” is right next to calling a video game “fundamentally broken” on the list of things people say when they don’t like a thing you’ve made and aren’t great at explaining why they don’t like it.
Anyway, the going theory is that I’m a Social Justice Warrior who gets mad about anything racist, homophobic, sexist or other related -ist or -phobic. That’s not entirely true. My problem is when those things are acted out by the characters that are supposed to be good guys. Characters that are role models for kids who say “hey babies and people in the crowd, cheer for me! I’m just like you! You can live vicariously through me!” I think that’s super dangerous. Impressionable wrestling fans of every age get told that being a total piece of shit is fine if people like you. That’s the big distinction. The other angle on that is that I don’t like when a bad guy acts that way and WINS. The “Piggie James” story is a good example of that. Wrestling is not high enough of an art to tell stories where the bad guy wins and expect the audience to know/remember that that’s still bad.
The point of wrestling should be to stir society’s most base emotions. Understanding everything I’ve typed here, I want heels to be the WORST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. I’m not gonna get offended if Lana shows up all “LOL RUSSIA SHOT DOWN A PLANE AND KILLED 300 PEOPLE BECAUSE OF YOU STUPID AMERICANS.” I’m not gonna get offended if Rusev starts dropping N-Bombs and f*cking a blowup doll dressed like John Cena if the point is that these people are reprehensible beyond any argument and deserving of comeuppance … and if that comeuppance happens, and comes from someone who understands why it needs to be given. At the same time I’m still probably going to occasionally get offended by shit like that because wrestling is a work, and the point is probably to piss me off like that sometimes. People have a wide range of responses and emotions, you know? I’m a wrestling fan. I’m stuck loving and withstanding and justifying and getting bent by the lowest f*cking art in the world.
Worst: Why Do A Count-out Finish And Then Do The Finish We Expected On Top Of It?
This isn’t necessarily a Worst for the entire Rusev/Jack Swagger match, mind you. The crowd was hot for most of it, and when your story is USA RULES RUSSIA DROOLS, a hot crowd is the point. They could’ve stood in the middle of the ring trading thumbs to the eye and if the crowd’s chanting “USA” they’ve done their job.
The Worst here is for that finish, which was (like so many things on Battleground) ALMOST awesome. The point seemed to be that Rusev had finally met his match in Jack Swagger, and Swagger was a guy who could take him to the limit and avoid the Xavier Woods-style Rusev squash. Swagger works the ankle and has Rusev in the Patriot Lock on the outside. Rusev has watched wrestling before and knows that rolling forward in an ankle lock somehow propels the person locking ankle into a 20-foot stumbly run, so he rolls forward and Swagger bumbleruns into the post. The referee almost counts them both out, but Rusev’s able to slide into the ring at nine and snag a cheap win. That’s GREAT. The finish is hot, Swagger doesn’t get decisively beaten and Rusev looks like a coward for proclaiming the unstoppable strength of Russia when he had to win on a limpy 9-count.
And then NOPE, they do the Accolade finish anyway.
The running theme of Battleground is SORRY, NOT GONNA GIVE YOU ANYTHING, WAIT ‘TIL SUMMERSLAM, so I understand them trying to add heat to the post-match scene and give Rusev and Swagger a reason to wrestle again. That doesn’t make me like it any more. I don’t know why you trounce Swagger in the Accolade here if you’ve already ended the match hot. Rusev can just as easily jump Swagger from behind on Raw and Accolade him somewhere to get that point across. WWE seems so afraid of episodic storytelling, don’t they? You told your story. You hit the point hard. Now move to the next episode and tell THAT episode’s story instead of not telling any kind of anything for four weeks and then cramming it all into five pay-per-view minutes.
A quick note about that comeuppance thing, while I’m thinking about it … it doesn’t have to be instantaneous. If a wrestler’s like ROB VAN DAM DID 9/11 to get heat, Van Dam doesn’t have to magically appear and kick him in the head to prove him wrong. I would just like to trust in WWE’s ability to stick with something and pay it off when the time is right, when all they’re actually gonna do is stall on it until we forget it or they find something more important to do. Delayed comeuppance is what draws money. Constant 50/50 booking and everybody in the company being wishy-washy assholes who arbitrarily win and lose and don’t care doesn’t.
The Bad News Bears love you, Chris!
Best: Hey This Chris Jericho Bray Wyatt Match Is Going Pretty Well, I Wonder What The
Worst: Wait, Is That It?
We’re all done with the Wyatts, right? They’ve got to be the least effective heel stable of all time. They don’t accomplish ANYTHING. Harper and Rowan lost to the Usos clean and now here’s Bray getting beaten by a Codebreaker “from out of nowhere,” aka Jericho calmly walking up to him and hitting a Codebreaker on him in the middle of the ring. People love to throw out that victory Bray got over Daniel Bryan at the Royal Rumble and the rad Shield tag at Elimination Chamber, but what’s happened since WrestleMania? The only important win Bray’s gotten was via the help of a MAGICAL CHILD ACTOR after getting his ass handed to him with a 3-on-1 advantage. The Wyatt Family is just the Bushwhackers with a Bible now.
Frustrations about that aside, Bray vs. Jericho was a solid match. The schoolboy roll-up into the bottom turnbuckle should be the Burning Hammer of the Divas Division. Paige needs to KO somebody with a cutthroat schoolboy roll-up. WRIST LOCK SCHOOLBOY DANGEROUSSSSSS!
Best: I’m Afraid I’m Happy To See Some Bad News
He looks like one of the GEICO Racing Presidents.
One of the stupidest things WWE’s doing right now is keeping Bad News Barrett off TV. He’s hurt, so he can’t wrestle, right? This is BAD NEWS BARRETT, the guy you had specifically NOT wrestle for months because he was better off standing behind a lectern or atop a giant, motorized podium to be amazing on the microphone and run people down. Just have him deliver hilarious bad news and make me happily clap my hands without elbowing people. Super easy.
Worst: Two Quick Battle Royal Complaints
1. They gave everyone an entrance so the people at 2K would have a single resource for jobber entrances, right?
2. I made fun of Christy Hemme in this week’s Best and Worst of Impact report for saying “foaling,” so I can’t let Lilian Garcia off the hook for being a decade-plus into the wrestling business and not knowing how to say “championship.” “The following is a battle royal for the Intercontinental CHAMPIO-SHEAAAAAA!!!” “THE DIVAS CHAMPIONSHEHHHHHH.” A hard P, Lilian. Like Tom Hanks in The Green Mile.
Best: The Great Khali’s Resting Animation
Here’s a GIF of Khali waiting for everyone to attack him:
Best: Kofi vs. Cesaro
Unsurprisingly, all the best battle royal stuff revolved around Cesaro. I especially loved his interactions with Kofi, because Cesaro is the best base in the world for catching and directing ridiculous high flying, and because there is no more ridiculous high flying than Kofi Kingston in a battle royal. If you missed this show, Kofi’s big “avoid being eliminated” spot saw him jump backwards off the apron and land on Big E’s shoulders, then fight back in the style of Mecha Shiva until he gets lobbed back into the ring.
I’m telling you, one day they’re gonna come up with 15 weird elimination spots for Kofi at once and let him use them all in a row to win a Royal Rumble. That’s the only thing you can do with him now. We get that he’s got one good avoidance of elimination in him per battle royal, but if he never wins with one of them it’ll be a shame. This is coming from someone who can’t stand Kofi Kingston. I don’t even want to see this guy wrestle a mid-card match on Raw, but I’m advocating him winning a damn Royal Rumble and getting a WrestleMania title shot by proxy of one huge, game-ending performance.
I would also like for Cesaro to not get treated like Jinder Mahal, but I guess that’s what we’re doing now.
Best: Heath Slater, Battle Royalty
QUICK, GUESS MY FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE ENTIRE NIGHT
Kofi Kingston tries to eliminate Cesaro for like five minutes and can’t do it. Then HEATH SLATER of all people just rushes up behind Cesaro when he’s not paying attention and dumps him out. Slater was seriously the only dude in this match I’d accept eliminating Cesaro, and he had a 0% chance of doing it going into it. And yet, BOOM, Cesaro got Maven’d. I love it. I will love it more if Heath Slater and Cesaro start feuding, because at least ONE of those guys should be the next big thing. If Cesaro’s getting put on the back burner to not steal Roman Reigns’ precious baby thunder, maybe Slater can finally rise up to that Dolph Ziggler/Santino spot he deserves. With arch nemesis Flo Rida guest starring on Raw tonight, Heath Slater needs that momentum now more than ever.
Heath Slater is my favorite wrestler right now and it’s not even close.
Worst: What The Hell Was Going On With Sheamus Here
Did he get a concussion? Did he down a bunch of cough medicine before the match? That poor guy couldn’t do SHIT when he was trying to finish out the match with Ziggler. He couldn’t take (or counter, I guess) the Fame-Asser and gets Dolph’s dick stuck on his forehead trying to pop him over out of a powerbomb. He just kept falling down and getting hurt. He was terrible, and that’s not something I ever type about Sheamus in the ring.
Best: Dolph Ziggler’s Career Dot Gif
Worst: Raise Your Hand If You Wanted Another Miz/Wade Barrett IC Title Rivalry
Miz lounging around outside the ring and sneaking in to throw out the popular battle royal winner was effective, and also the most obvious thing in the world. For a guy like Miz it feels like a massive retread, ESPECIALLY since he’s just holding the title for a babyface Bad News Barrett to show back up and elbow him to death. On paper that seems great, but in practice I think about the WrestleMania pre-shows and herky-jerky title changes and all the horrifying non-title losses that come with it.
If Miz isn’t going to do anything better than this, can he go film Christmas Bounty 2: Redemption or whatever and leave it to somebody who isn’t bologna on white bread?
Worst: Hardy Pantz Roman Reigns
Black pants, black flak jacket, all black everything. That’s what Roman Reigns needs to be wearing. If you’re gonna keep the Shield entrance and the Shield music because you need the cool points, keep the Shield gear too. Keep the dog mask. Be THE SHIELD GUY. Do not wear olive-trimmed cargo pants from the Matt Hardy collection.
Seriously, Roman looks like he ordered those from a 1997 Gadzooks catalog. They just need bondage straps crossing between the legs. He should come out in a button-up short-sleeved shirt with a big Dragon Ball Z character print on it. It’s not going to make him look any worse than olive f*cking Tron pants.
Nihilistic Best: WHOOPS, IT’S OBVIOUS
man, what do you even type here
The build to Battleground was the same show done what, six times in a row? So I guess it makes sense that Battleground itself would be a seventh. The finish is just the Money in the Bank finish again, with Cena Attitude Adjusting one guy onto another and effortlessly winning. It’s that thing we joked about in the predictions. The thing that made us look like snarky jerks who can’t just enjoy the wrestling. It’s so hilariously nihilistic and self-fulfilling that all you can do is throw up the OK Dukes and yell BA BADDA BAAAAAAA!
If you are a child that loves John Cena, these are the Golden Days. I can’t imagine how fun it must be. No wrestler (or sports team) I have ever cheered for has won this often. I can’t even process it. Good lord. The next three Raws should be exactly like the previous three, and SummerSlam should end with Cena Attitude Adjusting Paul Heyman onto Brock Lesnar, pinning him clean, then popping up with zero damage and hopping happily into a celebratory freeze-frame.
Does anybody have a giant pile of money I can set fire to
Tomorrow Night: Plan C
I’m telling you, if the leaked poster and hype video were just an excuse to throw us off the CM Punk trail, tonight on the Internet is gonna be ridiculous. Punk’s contract ending on Thursday would make it even better. I am never going to stop wishing for corporate sellout CM Punk, I don’t care if he’s 60 years old and the Blackhawks janitor.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night
Jake Howell
That was the longest Summerslam preview I’ve ever seen.
Reverend
This didn’t build towards Summerslam. If Summerslam is a house that we are building, all Battleground was, someone walking onto the site, and saying, “Yep, something will be built here soon, but not today”
PhilBallins
*New guys win the title all the time*
“WHY AREN’T THERE ANY GREAT CHAMPIONSHIP REIGNS? THE TITLES MEAN NOTHING!”
*Solid champs retain after hard fought battle”
“WHY DIDN’T THEY LOSE, THIS IS BULLSHIT!
Redshirt
Jack Swagger represents a true, American hero. A celebrity who was able to beat a DUI and drug possession charge because he’s famous.
Harry Longabaugh
Be a STARDUST (Show Tremendous Awe and Reverence to Dazzling, Ubiquitous, Stunning Treasures)
A Jiggy
Somebody PLEASE keep JBL out of Steve Harvey’s closet
Anthony Daniels
That would have been so much better if Ambrose would have popped out of the luggage.
TheBuzzicane
I want to believe that Ambrose travels to every arena like that.
Breaking Hurd
Cena left that window so open that a WWE investor could have jumped out of it
yung jdot
battleground in one image:
Thanks, everybody. See you tonight for the live discussion of an ALL-NEW WWE Raw, and again on Tuesday for me putting my head down on a desk and sighing deeply.
